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 Reason to Change
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is an approach to counselling and psychotherapy in which
great emphasis is placed on how attitudes are at the root of emotional problems and their solution. The
first edition of Reason to Change was written as a one-​of-​a-​kind workbook teaching the practical skills
of REBT.

In this updated edition, Windy Dryden teaches, in a very specific way, the skills needed to use this
therapeutic approach in practice in a thorough and accessible way. Each skill is explained in detail, and
examples are given of how each skill can be put into practice. These skills include:

• developing a problem list and setting goals

• choosing a target problem and assessing a specific example
• examining attitudes
• dealing with your doubts, reservations and objections
• taking action.

By using these skills in an active way, it can be possible to address affectively emotional problems such
as anxiety, depression, shame, guilt, hurt, unhealthy anger, unhealthy jealousy and unhealthy envy. This
book can be used by people on their own, and by those who are consulting an REBT therapist. It will
also be of interest to therapists and counsellors.

Windy Dryden is in part-​time clinical and consultative practice and is an international authority on
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. He has worked in psychotherapy for more than 45 years and is the
author and editor of over 240 books.
 REASON TO
CHANGE

A Rational Emotive Behaviour

Therapy Workbook

SECOND EDITION

Windy Dryden
Second edition published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2022 Windy Dryden

The right of Windy Dryden to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,

and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

First edition published by Brunner-​Routledge 2001

British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-76993-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-76992-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16927-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Helvetica
by Newgen Publishing UK
Contents
Preface vii
Prologue ix

1 The REBT view of psychological problems 1

2 The practice of REBT 13

3 Understanding psychological problems and developing a

problem list 19

4 Setting goals 29

5 Nominating a problem and assessing a specific example 37

6 Setting goals with respect to the specific example 55

7 Examining your attitudes 61

8 Dealing with your doubts, reservations and objections 71

9 Taking action 95

10 Examining the adversity at ‘A’ 109

11 Dealing with your core rigid/​extreme attitudes 113

12 Strengthening your conviction in your core and specific

flexible/​non-​extreme attitudes 125

13 Goal achievement and beyond 139

Appendix 1: How to find an REB therapist 153

Appendix 2: List of eight common unhealthy negative emotions with the
equivalent healthy negative emotions, together with their adversity themes,
basic attitudes, behaviours and forms of subsequent thinking 155
Appendix 3: Blank Dryden REBT Form (DRF) 165
Appendix 4: DRF completed by Charles 167
Appendix 5: Unhealthy negative emotions: suggested reading 169
Index 171

v
Preface
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is an approach to counselling and psychotherapy that falls
fairly and squarely within the cognitive-​behavioural therapeutic (CBT) tradition. In this tradition great
emphasis is placed on the role that thoughts, attitudes and behaviour play in the development and
maintenance of emotional problems.

It is generally recognised that REBT was the first CBT approach to make an impact on the world’s
therapeutic stage. Its founder, Albert Ellis, who originated REBT in 1955 and who died in 2007, is
regarded as one of the two grandfathers of the CBT movement (Aaron Beck, the founder of Cognitive
Therapy, being the other). You may like to know that I have trained with both Ellis and Beck but see
myself very much as an REB therapist.

Indeed, I have been practising REBT since 1977 and have written many books on the subject. This
book, however, is different from most of my other REBT books in that here I have attempted to teach,
in a very specific way, the skills that you need to acquire if you are to get the most from this therapeutic
approach.

While I have written this workbook so that it can be used by people on their own, it can also be used
by those who are consulting an REB therapist. To get the most from the book, though, it is important
that you do not just read it. Rather, use the skills in an active way to help yourself address affectively
your emotional problems. To help you do this I have explained each skill in detail and have provided
an example of how each skill has been put into practice. Feel free to photocopy the forms as you work
through the book.

I have written this book primarily for people whose emotional problems interfere with the quality of their
lives. If this fits your situation, you can use this book on your own or while consulting an REB therapist.
However, if your problems disable rather than just interfere with your life, do not use this workbook on
your own. Consult an REB therapist and use it in conjunction with such consultations (see Appendix 1 to
find out how to contact an REB therapist in your area). If you are in doubt about this issue, talk it over in
the first instance with your GP or other relevant professional.

Lack of space prevents me from giving you detailed suggestions to help you deal with each of the eight
disturbed emotions for which people seek therapeutic help: anxiety, depression, shame, guilt, hurt,
unhealthy anger, unhealthy jealousy and unhealthy envy. However, in Appendix 5 I provide reading
suggestions for most of these problematic emotions. You can use this workbook in conjunction with
such reading since the texts dovetail very well.

vii
You may be wondering why I have called this workbook Reason to Change. The answer is twofold; first,
in order to change you need to have a reason to change, and, second, you need to use your reason to
change!

I hope that you benefit from using this workbook and, as I say at the end, I would be very interested to
learn of your experiences in doing so. Good luck!

Windy Dryden

April 2021

London & Eastbourne

viiiPreface
Prologue
As you will see later in this workbook, REBT is based on an ‘ABC’ framework for understanding both
psychological disturbance and health. ‘A’ stands for an adversity, ‘B’ has traditionally stood for a
person’s beliefs about the adversity, and ‘C’ stands for the consequences that the person experiences
as a result of holding their beliefs about ‘A’. In the first edition of this workbook, I used these terms
and also used the terms ‘irrational’ or ‘rational’ to describe those beliefs that underpinned a person’s
disturbed responses to adversity (i.e. ‘irrational’) and those beliefs that underpinned that person’s
healthy responses to the same adversity (i.e. ‘rational’). However, I have always been dissatisfied with
the term ‘beliefs’ and the terms ‘irrational’ and ‘rational’ which describe the different types of beliefs
that REBT argues underpin psychological disturbance and health, respectively, and decided formally
to change them several years ago (Dryden, 2016). I will be using the new terminology in this second
edition of the workbook. But, first, let me explain the reasons why I made these important changes in
terminology.

From beliefs to attitudes

A few years before I took the decision to make these changes, I carried out research on how REBT’s
‘ABC’ framework was understood by different professional and lay groups.1 This research revealed a
range of confusions and errors made by these groups about each element in the framework (Dryden,
2013), but particularly about ‘B’. For example, the term ‘belief’ was often used to describe adversities at
‘A’ rather than evaluations at ‘B’ (e.g. ‘I believe that you don’t like me’). I concluded that such confusions
and errors about ‘B’ could be rectified by using the term ‘attitude’ rather than ‘belief’ since the term
‘belief’ is often used by people in a way that is very different from the way it is used in REBT.

Thus, the term ‘belief’ has been defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, 4th edition (Colman,
2015) as ‘any proposition that is accepted as true on the basis of inconclusive evidence’. Thus, as we
have seen, a client may say something like: ‘I believe my boss criticised me’, and while they think that
they have articulated a belief, this is not actually a belief as the term has been used in REBT, but rather
an inference. As you will see, it is very important to distinguish between an inference at ‘A’ and an
attitude (or belief in the traditional REBT sense) at ‘B’ and anything that helps this distinction to be made
routinely is to be welcomed. Using the term ‘attitude’ rather than ‘belief’ was the best way I could see to
do this.

Definitions of the term ‘attitude’ are closer to the meaning that REBT theorists ascribe to the term
‘belief’. Here are three such definitions of the term ‘attitude’:

1 The four groups were: (a) authors of textbooks on counselling and psychotherapy; (b) REB therapists; (c) Albert Ellis (when
he was in the twilight of his career) and his wife Debbie Joffe Ellis (2011); and (d) patients in a psychiatric hospital who were
taught the REBT framework.

ix
• ‘an enduring pattern of evaluative responses towards a person, object, or issue’ (Colman, 2015)
• ‘a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially
significant objects, groups, events or symbols’ (Hogg and Vaughan, 2005: 150)
• ‘a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of
favor or disfavor’ (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993: 1).

Before deciding to change the term ‘belief’ to the term ‘attitude’ in my writings and clinical work, I used
the term ‘attitude’ rather than ‘belief’ with my clients and found that it was easier for me to convey the
meaning of ‘B’ when I used ‘attitude’ than when I used ‘belief’ and they, in general, found ‘attitude’ easier
to understand in this context than ‘belief’.

Consequently, I decided to use the term ‘attitude’2 instead of the term ‘belief’ to denote an evaluative
stance taken by a person towards an adversity at ‘A’ which has emotional, behavioural and thinking
consequences (Dryden, 2016). In deciding to use the term ‘attitude’ rather than the term ‘belief’,
I recognise that when it comes to explaining what the ‘B’ stands for in the ABC framework, the term
‘attitude’ is problematic because it begins with the letter ‘A’. Rather than use an ‘AAC’ framework
which is not nearly as catchy or as memorable as the ‘ABC’ framework, I suggested using the phrase
‘Basic Attitudes’3 when formally describing ‘B’ in the ‘ABC’ framework. While not ideal, this term
includes ‘attitudes’ and indicates that they are central or basic and that they lie at the base of a person’s
responses to an adversity.

In using the term ‘basic’, I have thus preserved the letter ‘B’ so that the well-​known ‘ABC’ framework can
be used. However, when not formally describing the ‘ABC’ framework I will employ the word ‘attitude’
rather than the phrase ‘basic attitude’ when referring to the particular kind of cognitive processing that
REBT argues mediates between an adversity and the person’s responses to that negative event.

From ‘irrational’/​‘rational’ beliefs to rigid and extreme/​flexible and

non-​extreme attitudes
Another change that I initiated is the movement away from the terms ‘irrational’ and ‘rational’ to the
terms ‘rigid and extreme’ and ‘flexible and non-​extreme’ when describing the attitudes that underpin
psychological disturbance and psychological health. The reason I made that change is that the terms
‘irrational’ and ‘rational’ tend to be a turn-​off to both clients and non-​REB therapists. Towards the end
of his career, Ellis himself regretted that he chose the name ‘Rational Therapy’ to describe his therapy.
He said that he wished that he had called it ‘Cognitive Therapy’ but did not do so because the term
‘cognitive’ was not in vogue in the mid-​1950s.4

2 As this is still a relatively new development, please note that other REB therapists (including myself in the first edition of this
workbook) still employ the word ‘beliefs’.
3 This phrase was suggested by my friend and colleague Dr Walter Matweychuk.
4 Interestingly enough, when Ellis changed the name of his therapy from ‘Rational Therapy’ to ‘Rational-​Emotive Therapy’ in
1962 and ‘Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy’ in 1993, he had the opportunity to change the ‘rational’ part of the name to
‘cognitive’ but did not do so.

xPrologue
newgenprepdf

On the other hand, clients can see readily that the attitudes that underpin their psychologically disturbed
responses to adversities are rigid and extreme. These terms are less pejorative than the term ‘irrational’,
which tends to be equated in many clients’ minds with the term ‘crazy’ or ‘bizarre’. Far from being seen
as something to strive for, the term ‘rational’ is seen by clients as being robot-​like and unemotional.
On the other hand, the terms ‘flexible’ and ‘non-​extreme’ when describing the attitudes that underpin
psychologically healthy responses to adversities at ‘A’ are more acceptable to clients.

I hope that this explains the reasons for the changes in terminology in this new edition of the workbook.

References
Colman, A. (2015). Oxford dictionary of psychology, 4th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dryden, W. (2013). Coping with guilt. London: Sheldon.
Dryden, W. (2016). Attitudes in rational emotive behaviour therapy: Components, characteristics and adversity-​
related consequences. London: Rationality Publications.
Eagly, A.H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College
Publishers.
Ellis, A., & Joffe Ellis, D. (2011). Rational emotive behavior therapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2005). Social psychology, 4th edn. London: Prentice-​Hall.

Prologue xi
 CHAPTER 1

THE REBT VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

The importance of informed consent

When you consult a professionally trained therapist,1 it is likely that they will belong to a recognised
professional body and that body will have a code of ethics and practice by which your therapist is
expected to abide. One of the principles in this code is known as the principle of informed consent.
This principle states that it is a mark of ethical practice that you should give your informed consent to a
therapeutic approach before your therapist proceeds to help you by using this approach with you. If we
look at the principle of informed consent carefully, we will quickly see that, in order for you to give your
consent to proceed with an approach to counselling/​psychotherapy, you have to be informed about it.

When you consult a Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapist (henceforth known as an REB therapist), at
some point early in the therapy process, they will explain to you something about REBT so that you can
make an informed decision as to whether to proceed with this approach or whether to consult a therapist
from a different therapeutic persuasion. Now, your REB therapist is unlikely to overwhelm you with too
much information about REBT at the outset. Rather, they will tell you something about the REBT view of
psychological problems and something about how the approach is practised.

As I mentioned in the Preface to this text, you may be using this workbook in conjunction with having
consultations with an REB therapist or on your own as a self-​help manual. Either way, in this chapter,
I am going to explain the REBT view of psychological problems and, in the next chapter, I will discuss
some of the fundamentals of REBT practice so that you have sufficient information about REBT to give
your informed consent to proceed with this workbook or to seek a different kind of help if it transpires
that REBT is not the approach to counselling or self-​help that you are looking for.

There is a viewpoint in American social work that makes an important distinction between an ‘applicant’
and a ‘client’ that is very relevant here. This viewpoint states that when you seek help from a therapist,
you have the status of an ‘applicant’. You become a ‘client’ when you give your informed consent to
proceed with therapy. Thus, at the moment, you are an applicant. I hope that after you have read what

1 In this book, whenever I use the term ‘therapist’, I mean a person who is qualified to help people with their emotional
problems. This person may be a therapist, counsellor, psychotherapist, clinical psychologist, counselling psychologist,
psychiatrist or any other trained mental health practitioner.

1
I have had to say about the REBT view of psychological problems (in this chapter) and how REBT
addresses these problems (in the next chapter), you will become a client. If not, and you decide to seek
a different approach to counselling, I wish you well and suggest that you consult a book entitled The
Which? Guide to Counselling and Therapy written by Shamil Wanigaratne and Mike Brookes (2013).
This book will tell you something about different approaches to counselling and psychotherapy that are
available.

The ‘Giving a Speech’ Model

Let me begin by inviting you to join me as a participant as I go over the ‘Giving a Speech’ Model. This
model gets to the heart of REBT’s view of psychological problems.

There are four steps to this model.

Step 1
I want you to imagine that you have been asked by your boss to give a speech to a group of visiting
dignitaries (the first half of which will be before their morning coffee break and the second half after it)
and you hold the following basic attitude2 towards the possibility of not giving a good speech (which is
the adversity):

I want to give a good speech, but it isn’t absolutely necessary for me to do so. If I don’t give a good
speech, it will be bad, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

How would you feel about the possibility of not giving a good speech while holding this attitude? If you
think about it, you would probably feel concerned about the possibility of not giving a good speech, but
you wouldn’t feel unduly anxious about it.

Step 2
Now, in this second step, I want you to imagine again that you have been asked by your boss to give a
speech to a group of visiting dignitaries (the first half of which will be before their morning coffee break
and the second half after it), but this time you hold the following different attitude towards the adversity
(the possibility of not giving a good speech):

I want to give a good speech and therefore I absolutely must do so. If I don’t, it would not just be
bad, it would be truly awful.

2 As I mentioned in the Prologue, in this book I will use the terms ‘basic attitude’ and ‘attitude’ interchangeably. The term
‘basic’ shows that attitudes are at the ‘base’ of a person’s psychological response to an adversity and is a reminder that
attitudes represent ‘B’ in the ‘ABC’ framework.

2 The REBT view of psychological problems

How would you feel this time about the possibility of not giving a good speech while holding this
different attitude? If you think about it, you would probably feel very anxious about the possibility of not
giving a good speech.

Now I want you to focus on one important point here:

While facing the same adversity –​the possibility of not giving a good speech –​
your different feelings are determined by different attitudes.

Step 3
In the third step of the model, I want you to imagine that you still hold the attitude that you absolutely
have to give a good speech and it would be terrible if you didn’t. You give the first half of your speech
and at the end of it you conclude that it has gone down well. Now, how would you feel about that? You
would probably feel relieved or pleased.

Step 4
But, suddenly, still holding the attitude that you have to give a good speech and it would be awful if
you didn’t, you suddenly stop feeling relieved or pleased and become anxious again. What do you think
you would be anxious about? That’s right, you would probably be anxious about the possibility that the
second half of your speech wouldn’t be good.

Conclusion
The point of this model is the following:

That all humans, black or white, rich or poor, male or female, from whichever
culture, make themselves emotionally disturbed when they don’t get what they
rigidly demand they must get and are vulnerable to emotional disturbance when
they do get what they rigidly demand because the situation may change and
their rigid demands may no longer be met. However, if humans stayed with their
preferences and realised that they don’t have to have these preferences met, then
they would still experience negative feelings when their preferences weren’t met,
but these negative feelings would be healthy and would motivate them to change
what can be changed and adjust constructively to what can’t be changed.

The REBT view of psychological problems 3

Have you ever heard the famous dictum attributed to Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher: ‘People are
disturbed not by things, but by their views of things’? The REBT view of psychological problems or
disturbance is very nicely summarised by a re-​formulation of this dictum, namely:

People are disturbed not by situations, nor by the adversities that feature in these
problem-​occurring situations, but by the rigid and extreme attitudes that they hold
towards these adversities.

The REBT view of psychological health follows on from the above thus:

People respond healthily to the adversities that feature in their problem-​occurring

situations when they hold flexible and non-​extreme attitudes towards these
adversities.

REBT’s ‘Situational ABC’ models of psychological disturbance

and health
The above two statements contain all that is needed for me to outline the way REBT makes sense of your
psychological problems and how you can deal with these problems in healthy ways. Before I present
these two models let me define each element of the models.

‘Situation’
The situation refers to a descriptive account of the context in which your problematic response or
healthy response occurs.

‘A’
‘A’ stands for ‘adversity’ and represents what you respond problematically to or healthily to in the
situation described above. ‘A’ remains the same whether you are responding problematically or healthily
in the ‘situation’.

‘B’
‘B’ stands for the ‘basic attitudes’3 you hold towards the adversity. As will be shown these ‘basic
attitudes’ will be rigid and extreme when you respond problematically to the adversity or flexible and
non-extreme when you respond healthily to the adversity.

3 Most often referred to as ‘attitude’ in this workbook.

4 The REBT view of psychological problems

‘C’
‘C’ refers to the emotional, behavioural and thinking consequences of holding your attitudes at ‘B’
towards the adversity at ‘A’ in the situation. These consequences will be unhealthy and unconstructive
or healthy and constructive depending on whether your attitudes at ‘B’ are rigid/extreme or flexible/
non-extreme.

Figure 1.1 outlines REBT’s ‘Situational ABC’ models of psychological disturbance and health. You
will notice from this figure that the ‘situation’ and the adversity at ‘A’ are common features in both
psychological disturbance and psychological health. This is important. As made explicit in the
statements on psychological disturbance and health presented above, the REBT model argues that
since people disturb themselves about adversities that feature in problem-​occurring situations, both
the adversities and the situations in which they feature need to be present to remind people that
psychological health is not about bypassing adversity but about facing adversity and dealing effectively
with it. This stance characterises the REBT approach that is described in this book.

Let me now consider more formally the rigid and extreme attitudes that occur at ‘B’ in the ‘Situational
ABC’ framework which REBT considers to be at the core of many psychologically disturbed responses
to adversities. I will also consider the alternative flexible and non-​extreme attitudes that are at the core
of psychologically healthy responses to the same adversities. These flexible/​non-​extreme attitudes also
occur at ‘B’ in this framework.

Rigid and extreme attitudes and their healthy flexible and

non-​extreme alternatives
Rigid and extreme attitudes have the following characteristics. They are:

a inconsistent with reality

b illogical or nonsensical, and they
c lead largely to dysfunctional consequences for the person.

On the other hand, flexible and non-​extreme attitudes have the following characteristics. They are:

a consistent with reality

b logical or sensible, and they
c lead largely to functional consequences for the person.

Rigid attitudes versus flexible attitudes

I will begin by considering rigid and flexible attitudes. For most of his professional life, the originator of
REBT, Dr Albert Ellis, considered these attitudes to be at the very core of psychological disturbance and
health respectively.

The REBT view of psychological problems 5

 ‘Situation’

Adversity (‘A’)

Basic Attitudes (‘B’) Basic Attitudes (‘B’)

(Rigid and Extreme) (Flexible and Non-​extreme)

Rigid = Flexible =

Extreme = Non-​extreme =

Consequences (‘C’) Consequences (‘C’)

(Unhealthy and Unconstructive) (Healthy and Constructive)

Emotional = Emotional =

Behavioural = Behavioural =

Thinking = Thinking =

Psychological Disturbance Psychological Health

Figure 1.1 REBT’s ‘Situational ABC’ models of psychological disturbance and health

6 The REBT view of psychological problems

Rigid attitudes
A rigid attitude is based on your preference for something that you want to happen or not happen. Then
you turn your preference rigid by demanding that what you want to happen must happen, or what you
don’t want to happen must not happen. You can hold rigid attitudes towards yourself, others or life
conditions.

• rigid attitude towards yourself (e.g. ‘I want to do well and therefore I must do well’ or, in its short
form, ‘I must do well’)
• rigid attitude towards others (e.g. ‘I want you to treat me well and therefore you must do so’ or, in
its short form, ‘You must treat me well’)
• rigid attitude towards life conditions (e.g. ‘I want life to be fair and therefore it has to be’ or, in its
short form, ‘Life must be fair’).

You will note that in the examples above I gave two versions of a rigid attitude. First, I showed how this
rigid attitude is based on your preference and then I showed it with the preference component omitted.

The healthy alternative to a rigid attitude is a flexible attitude.

Flexible attitudes
Like a rigid attitude, a flexible attitude is also based on your preference for something that you want to
happen or not happen. But this time you keep your preference flexible, by affirming that it does not have
to be met. You can hold flexible attitudes towards yourself, others or life conditions. In what follows,
I will outline both of these components: the assertion of your preference and the acknowledgement that
this preference does not have to be met.

• flexible attitude towards yourself (e.g. ‘I want to do well, but I do not have to do well’)
• flexible attitude towards others (e.g. ‘I want you to treat me well, but you do not have to do so’)
• flexible attitude towards life conditions (e.g. ‘I want life to be fair, but that does not mean that it has
to fair’).

I mentioned earlier that in traditional REBT theory rigid and flexible attitudes are deemed to be at the
very core of psychological disturbance and health respectively. REBT theory also posits that three
extreme attitudes stem from a rigid attitude and three non-​extreme attitudes stem from a flexible
attitude.

Extreme attitudes versus flexible attitudes

The three extreme attitudes that stem from a rigid attitude are: i) an awfulising attitude,
ii) an unbearability attitude and iii) a devaluation attitude. The three non-​extreme attitudes
that stem from a flexible attitude are: i) a non-​awfulising attitude, ii) a bearability attitude and
iii) an unconditional acceptance attitude. I will now discuss each extreme/​non-​extreme attitude pair.

The REBT view of psychological problems 7

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